Crime-scene replicas still have tale to tell in Minneapolis filmmaker's documentary

One of Frances Glessner Lee's "nutshells." The nutshells reside at the office of Maryland's chief medical examiner, who allowed Susan Marks of Minneapolis to film them. (Courtesy photo)

Baltimore resident Frances Glessner Lee created "nutshells of unexplained death," with Barbie-like dolls as victims in the re-enactments. (Courtesy photo)

Think of "Of Dolls and Murder" like this: Barbie's Dreamhouse, after a maniac tore through it on a blood-soaked rampage.

Minneapolis filmmaker Susan Marks' "Of Dolls and Murder" documentary will be screened at Bryant Lake Bowl on Thursday, March 21. And it's a doozy.

Marks -- who previously made the Betty Crocker story, "The Betty Mystique" -- focuses on Frances Glessner Lee, a Baltimore resident who created detailed, dollhouse-like crime scene replicas in the 1930s and 1940s. That's detailed, as in tiny blood spatters on the wall behind a victim and tiny, faded spots on the wallpaper where it was bleached by the sun.

Marks, who grew up in St. Paul and attended the University of Minnesota, heard about what Lee called her "nutshell studies of unexplained death" when she was in grad school in 1999. She was in the middle of other projects then, but said, "The nutshells lingered in the back of my mind, waiting for me to tell their story."

When Marks was ready, she hit some roadblocks. For one thing, the nutshells, housed at the office of Maryland's chief medical examiner, are not offered for public viewing. For another, there wasn't much material available to her.

"When you start a project, you always have a fantasy of how these will turn out, that you will have access to journal entries and home movies of your subject," Marks said. "But those things didn't exist for this movie."

Luckily, the medical examiner agreed to talk to her. Convinced that her interest was serious, he set up an opportunity for her to film the nutshells while Baltimore homicide detectives studied them for clues about 80-year-old crime scenes.

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"I told them we'd just stand back and film the three guys processing the scene," said Marks, who also does freelance production for Twin Cities Public Television, among other clients.

"It was like watching something magical. They took it so seriously and were so methodical and thoughtful. And they really impressed us with how they went about investigating a crime. That's when I knew we would have a film."

The detectives took the nutshells seriously because they are serious business.

In "Of Dolls and Murder," narrator John Waters -- famous as both a Baltimore native, a filmmaker and a fan of true crime -- has a little fun with the stories of the murders whose aftermaths are depicted in the nutshells. But the reason Lee's work remains valuable to detectives is that she was so thorough in her miniatures that, even today, they clearly tell the forensic story of the crimes they depict.

One frustration for Marks was that she didn't get much information about the very private Lee -- not, at least, until after "Of Dolls and Murder" was completed. Since then, she has located several sources, including Lee's grandson and a descendant of a man who helped assemble the models. Marks plans to interview both of them for a follow-up film.

Another victim in a "nutshell." (Courtesy photo)

Meanwhile, Marks continues to answer questions from audience members who see the somewhat grisly "Of Dolls and Murder" and wonder what "deep, dark, horrible things happened to me to make me want to make this film."

The answer is, simply, that Marks is interested in people with stories to tell but that she is not, herself, a violent or homicidal person.

"I have not ever committed a murder," Marks joked. "Not even justifiable homicide."